
How ironic is this. For Valentines day, I bought Rachel a half dozen rose bushes to plant in pots in our front courtyard. The first rose to blossom started to appear the day Rachel was having significant labor pains on Thursday the 5th of March. As we were leaving to go to the hospital, the first yellow rose started to emerge leaves. We left the hospital that night and Rachel was only 3 cm. dilated and 60% effaced. We ended up having to go back to the hospital Saturday night the 7th and noticed again the yellow rose bloomed even more. At this point Rachel was a little more dilated but not much more.

Monday came around and the rose had almost opened. We went in to the doctor's office for our weekly check and Rachel was now 4+ cm. dilated and 70% effaced. We knew she was close. The next day around 3 p.m. there were signs that Isaiah was ready to grace us with his presence. As we left out the front door we noticed the rose had bloomed and fully opened! This was a sign. Now we were at the sixth day that Rachel had been having labor pains. When we got to the hospital Rachel was having extreme contractions not previously felt and she was 5 1/2 cm. dilated and 75% effaced. Dr. Kells just so happened to be at the hospital that night and after some gnarly contractions and spiky readouts on the monitor we were finally admitted. Dr. Kells ended up breaking her water a little after 11 p.m. as the contractions were really getting bad (sorry sweetie). At 1:01 a.m. on the 11th Isaiah was now a beautiful flower among us!